Inside devastating ruins of Mosul museum: Looted and vandalised

AFTER two and a half years under Islamic State control, this is what is left of Mosul’s rubble-strewn museum.

Kawa Omar

AAPMarch 14, 20172:13pm

A member of the Iraqi government forces walks around the exterior of the destroyed museum of Mosul. Picture: Ahmad Al-RubayeSource:AFP

AFTER two and a half years under Islamic State control, all that is left in Mosul’s museum are the traces of looting and destruction.

Inside the rubble-strewn building, where militants filmed themselves destroying ancient artefacts, the large stone wing of a statue of lamassu — an Assyrian winged bull deity — lies on the dusty floor among other broken remnants of the past.

A block engraved with Arabic Islamic calligraphy lies close by, and some Islamic manuscripts have been left undamaged. But almost everything else has gone.

A member of the Iraqi government forces inspects the damage inside the destroyed museum of Mosul. Picture: Ahmad Al-RubayeSource:AFP

A general view shows the damage inside the destroyed museum of Mosul. Picture: Ahmad Al-RubayeSource:AFP

A member of the Iraqi government forces holds an envelope from the office of the self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) group charity and alms office calling for the rich to donate to the poor, which is known in Islam as "Zakat". Picture: Ahmad Al-RubayeSource:AFP

Picture: Ahmad Al-RubayeSource:AFP

“What they didn’t loot they destroyed,” said Lieutenant Colonel Abdel Amir al- Mohammedawi, of Iraq’s elite Rapid Response units, who captured the museum building from Islamic State just days ago.

The battle against the militants still raged nearby on Saturday, however, as a Reuters cameraman visited the site with Iraqi troops.

Dozens of Assyrian, Akkadian, Babylonian, Persian and Roman artefacts that the ransacked museum held have all been stolen or damaged.

“Some were smuggled out of Iraq,” Mohammedawi said.

A general view shows the damage inside the destroyed museum. Picture: Ahmad Al-RubayeSource:AFP

Iraqi forces seized the museum from IS on March 7 as they pushed into west Mosul as part of a vast offensive to oust the jihadists from the northern city. Picture: Ahmad Al-RubayeSource:AFP

A general view shows a destroyed artefact at the museum of Mosul. Picture: Ahmad Al-RubayeSource:AFP

Picture: Ahmad Al-RubayeSource:AFP

Islamic State militants filmed themselves smashing some of the building’s contents including priceless statues with sledgehammers in 2015, as part of their highly publicised campaign to erase any cultural history that contravenes their extreme interpretation of Sunni Islam.

But they have also used the antiquities as a source of income.

Excavations under an ancient mosque elsewhere in Mosul, recently discovered after the militants retreated, showed that they took care of artefacts for loot.

The efforts to avoid damaging some antiquities contrast with the destruction of ancient sites across Islamic State’s self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq, from the desert city of Palmyra to the Assyrian capital of Nimrud, south of Mosul.

Picture: Ahmad Al-RubayeSource:AFP

Picture: Ahmad Al-RubayeSource:AFP

A member of the Iraqi forces holds damaged artefacts inside the destroyed museum. Picture: Ahmad Al-RubayeSource:AFP

A member of the Iraqi forces inspects the damage inside the museum. Picture: Ahmad Al-RubayeSource:AFP

The United States has said the looting and smuggling of artefacts has been a significant source of income for the militants. In July 2015, US authorities handed Iraq a hoard of antiquities it said it had seized from Islamic State in Syria.

A US-backed Iraqi campaign dislodged Islamic State from most Iraqi cities captured in 2014 and 2015. The militant group is now fighting in its last major urban stronghold, in the western part of Mosul, where the museum is located.

The outside of the building, which features Roman-style columns, is blackened from shell or rocket blasts and peppered with bullet holes.

The body of an Islamic State fighter lay just outside the church on Saturday, days after the fighting had moved further forward.